


>SS: Arrange Crew Meeting

by MafagafoGirl



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I didn't set this in an AU but it might as well could be, Prohibition Era, Second Person, humanstuck i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 15:05:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17789633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MafagafoGirl/pseuds/MafagafoGirl
Summary: In which Spades Slick goes on a pub crawl with the crew.This is my first work of fiction in second person, so I apologize if it's kinda confusing in some places. I wrote it in a day and it was super fun to write!





	>SS: Arrange Crew Meeting

You run along towards your crew’s headquarters to get together for your famously illegal all-around Pub Crawl. Every month the four of you gather together and have a night out -- no business to attend, no deals to make or break, no Felt to kill. Just you and the crew, drinking into the night until it gives place to the morning.

When you arrive at the HQ, Diamonds Droog is already there. He's always the first to arrive, and looks at you with his slit eyes behind the newspaper, dragging a blow of his cigarette. He greets you with a nod, and you nod back. He asks about the wife. You say Ms. Paint is getting used to the new house. He tells you to stop calling her by her maiden name, it sounds like you get off on the concept or something.

You growl at him to can it, or you'll shove a knife between his ribs. DD says you wouldn't dare; you'd dream to find someone able to cook books as tidily and tracelessly as him. Also, his suit costs more than your house. You lean back, ogling him with scorn.

He's right.

 

Clubs Deuce arrives shortly after you, boasting about the most freakishly fancy hat he was wearing, that he took from his mother-in-law’s wardrobe. You ask him whether he's gonna wear it to the Crawl, but he just keeps babbling about how the old hag never uses it, except to go to the theater, and it's just a waste of a nice hat. You threaten him with a stab too if he does bring the hat out, and he shuts up for now, taking it off and placing it below his more presentable, regular hat.

It's not long before Hearts Boxcars knocks on the door. The big guy never fails to make you satisfied, when he interrupts CD to tell him nobody cares about his stupid hat and tells DD to get down from his pedestal, because he ain't better than the rest of us mobsters, just because he can launder money like it was as easy as putting it on the washing machine. HB might not be as talkative as the rest of you, but he means business, and he gets the job done, and you like these traits in a cohort.

CD asks why you hadn't fixed your poor posture yet. You bark back that him and your doctor need to shut up about it. You just like to sulk. DD says that it'd make your back hurt when you're older. You say you don't wanna hear it. You all pester each other, updating each other on your weeks as if you didn't work together and hadn't broken a fellow’s hand the other night demanding payments, all together, as a crew, and then HB asks why were you all standing around in the HQ if everyone was here already, so you decide to head out to finally start the night.

 

On the way to the first pub, a little corner place on the basement of a tobacco shop, you and DD engage in a battle for who gets to decide the music for the ride. DD puts on some smooth jazz, and you quickly change it to swing; he changes back, saying it's his car. You change again, barking you're the leader. He's unmoved; he's the designated driver, but you're the designated co-driver, as you're in the front seat (but that's because you called shotgun, as CD decided to point out right now), and DD’s songs are gonna make you all fall asleep before you get to the place. He retorts, it's art. You're just always in a hurry, boss, give it a rest for God's sake. It gives you ulcers, y’know. Fuck this, you finish, and shove your tape so hard into the radio's compartment it might as well be stuck permanently there. DD gazes daggers at you.

Swing it is, then.

 

Halfway through the night, CD starts getting chummy, saying what a great night it was and how he was glad he had friends like you guys. He always gets way too friendly when he's plastered. You tell him to count the peanuts on a bowl in the middle of your table, a task he proceeds to do with a deep concentration, and you leave to join a poker match on a table nearby, and then get kicked out of the pub for forcing a man to fold holding up your knife so you could win with an ace high.

How many times has it been, Slick, that you've got us all thrown out of a establishment for poor conduct? Let's consult the tally. DD takes a notepad from his suit’s internal breast pocket. 12 times Slick got booted for starting fights, thrice Boxcars for perpetuating fights, and once Deuce for bothering other patrons with his extravagant hat. You told the little devil to forget that shit before you left, but he just loved it so much. DD boasts monotonically that his tally is still at 0, because he has better things to do than to flash a knife at passersby like a goddamn maniac. You scowl at him, and invite him to strife.

You get stabby when you drink, Slick. Hand over the knife, DD tells you. You spit a fuck no back at him. This is an intervention, Slick. HB walks over to get the knife from you. You scream mutiny and stab him. He gasps, and nearly breaks your nose. Serves you right for flipping the fuck out. As you get your bearings on the sidewalk, CD tugs on your elbow. 1046, he says. What the fuck? He replies it’s the amount of peanuts in the bowl, boss. You scoff and wipe your gored face, and pat him on the stupid hat saying he's a good boy.

When you get up, you sigh and pat your pocket-knife pocket, saying the knife won't leave it ‘till morning. The crew hesitates before believing you, and you all begin walking back to the HQ. The night is coming to an end.

 

What is of the car, you don't know, it got lost between the bar fights and the many shots of homemade questionable whiskey you all drunk during the evening. But that doesn't bother you all that much, after all, your crew own most of the city's territory. If it's still around and not on Felt’s side, it'll show up sometime. Otherwise, it's a trouble for future DD to worry with.

For now, the four of you contemplate your walk back, all somewhat still shitfaced but sobering up, popping licorice and scottie dogs into mouths, letting your feet scrape the pavement with strong noises that echo through the buildings full of people willing to sleep, as your laughs and bubbly voices fill the air on the early hours of the morning; a paperboy bikes on your direction, and tosses a paper to DD. He's kept himself sharp, since the first time Droog had shot his bike's front wheel with a silenced pistol, demanding the morning paper. He likes it fresh and warm. So freshly printed that you could press your hand against the text and it would leave a stamp. That's the stuff.

And together, you all start to sing your favorite song; you don't bother about being caught for loitering, after all the entire police this side of town is paid to not care. For you, it's barely a prohibition era. With your voices united, a harsh scrape of the throat, a melodic tenor, a deep, low baritone or a parakeet cry, you walk back with the sun painting the sky grey and pink in front of you, and the promise of a new, regular day ahead of you.

 

_I'm a member of the Midnight Crew_

_I'm a night owl and a wise bird too_

_Home with the milk in the morning_

_Singing the same old song (same old song)_

_Rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun_

_Early to bed and you miss all the fun_

_Bring your wife and trouble, it will never trouble you_

_Make her a member of the Midnight Crew!_

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me so very happy ^^ also my tumblr is artiesbutt. Feel free to shout at me at any time.
> 
> Song at the end is the chorus of "I'm a member of the Midnight Crew", the song sampled at the beginning of [S] Jack: Ascend and featured in [S] DD: Ascend more casually. Those might as well be my favorite flashes, though I didn't finish the comic so there might be something further ahead I like more c:
> 
> If you guys like this I might write something more extensive and detailed on the crew, but only because I kinda like them a lot lmao


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